Short answer
Yes, and FirstNet recommends it for any site where downtime costs revenue. Licensed microwave gives air-versus-trench diversity, LTE/5G or fixed wireless gives fast failover, and a secondary fibre on another carrier adds carrier redundancy.
In detail
Even fibre fails, through last-mile cuts, cable theft or provider outages, so the value of a backup depends on how independent it is from the primary. The options:
- Licensed microwave: a radio path that does not share fibre's trench, subject to line of sight.
- LTE/5G or fixed wireless: cost-effective failover. LTE/5G is unaffected by fibre cuts and cable theft, though it can be affected by tower power outages.
- Second fibre on a different carrier: high bandwidth and carrier redundancy, ideally on a diverse physical route.
- LEO satellite: an independent path for remote or highly critical sites that does not rely on terrestrial fibre or mobile towers.
- SD-WAN or Peplink bonding: steers or bonds traffic across both links so failover is automatic.
Because FirstNet is carrier-agnostic, the backup can sit on a different network from your primary. FirstNet supplies and manages both links, so you keep one contract, one SLA and one point of contact for the site.
Source: FirstNet Fibre Connectivity service page →
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